BP p.l.c. named most-admired upstream explorer in Wood Mackenzie’s 17th annual exploration awards

In its 17th Annual Exploration Awards, Wood Mackenzie Ltd has named BP p.l.c. (bp) the year’s Most-Admired Explorer. The award is determined by the votes of exploration leaders across the industry, supported by independent quantitative analysis conducted by Wood Mackenzie Ltd.

Across calendar year 2025, bp discovered more than 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent across its global exploration portfolio, including discoveries potentially worth upwards of US$3.5 billion. bp’s Bumerangue discovery, located in pre-salt carbonates of the Santos Basin offshore Brazil and drilled with a 100% working interest, carries Wood Mackenzie-estimated recoverable oil and gas reserves of between 2.2 and 5.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Bumerangue is bp’s largest discovery in 25 years and now faces significant uncertainties that must be derisked to achieve commerciality.

“bp’s return to the top of the exploration rankings with the Bumerangue success is significant,” said Andrew Latham, Senior Vice President, Energy Research, Wood Mackenzie. “The 2025 results demonstrate that high-impact frontier exploration, executed with technical rigour and commercial discipline, has potential to generate transformational value. These discoveries matter, not just as corporate milestones, but as new options for durable, energy supply in the years ahead.”

The awards ceremony was held alongside Wood Mackenzie’s 22nd annual Exploration Summit in May 2026 and highlighted four standout performers:

• Most admired explorer — bp: Discovered over 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent in 2025 with discoveries holding potential value of more than US$3.5 billion, underpinned by the Bumerangue pre-salt carbonate discovery in Brazil’s Santos basin — bp’s largest discovery in 25 years.
• Discovery of the year — Bumerangue (bp, Brazil): Estimated recoverable oil and gas reserves of between 2.2 and 5.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent, drilled by bp with 100% working interest in Brazil’s Santos basin, representing one of the largest potentially commercial discoveries in the region.
• E&P explorer of the year — Talos Energy: Operator of the Daenerys (WR 107) discovery, the largest Gulf of America discovery in many years. In 2025, 19 explorers each made discoveries with net value of more than US$100 million — ten of them E&P companies — reflecting a strong year for the independent sector.
• NOC explorer of the year — TPAO: The Turkish state oil company’s Goktepe discovery was the largest gas find in Europe since North Sakarya in 2021, in a year when seven NOCs each added more than 200 million barrels of oil equivalent in net resources, sustaining the broader trend of growing exploration impact from national oil companies.

Background information:

All discovery volumes, development values, and resource estimates cited in this release are produced by Wood Mackenzie Ltd using its proprietary upstream research and analytics platform. Development value figures reflect a net equity basis unless otherwise stated. Recoverable reserve estimates for Bumerangue (range: 2.2 to 5.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent) are Wood Mackenzie estimates, as of May 2026. Awards in this release cover exploration activity in calendar year 2025 (1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025). Survey results were announced at the Wood Mackenzie Exploration Summit in May 2026.